Weekly Racing Recap for April 20, 2010

New Boston course record, fastest time for an American in Boston

It won't be easy to go anywhere on the web today without bumping into a story about the Boston Marathon, so we'll populate this week's recap with as many non-Boston races as we can. And, lucky for us, it's only Boston that becomes completely overwhelmed on Patriot's Day. The rest of the running world behaved normally, so there's a lot to pick over.

Before we do that, though, a couple of thoughts about Boston (you can read all of the combined Runner's World/Running Times coverage of the weekend here): First, we think Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot's 2:05:52 was exceptional. Just how exceptional we're not sure, mostly because he made it look so easy. But for several reasons, we think his race may have been the best marathon ever on American soil, the best marathon performance of the past year, and should contend for a spot on a list of top-10 marathon performances of all time.

First, it looks like Cheruiyot's 2:05 is the fastest non-paced marathon in history, even if Ryan Hall did a pretty good job of filling that role. Second, it's without doubt the hardest 2:05 in history. Every other 2:05 happened on a flat course. (Yes, Boston is net downhill. It's still not a fast course.) And the last reason is a big one: Cheruiyot has brought the explosion in long distance racing that we've written about elsewhere to the world of "tactical" marathoning, similar to what Sammy Wanjiru did in the 2008 Olympic Marathon. In that sense, he may have just changed the nature of marathon running in the one segment of the sport―non-paced, technical races―that had resisted change. And he did it at the most traditional marathon in the world.

The last Boston thought we have is about Ryan Hall. On a day when there was a lot to be impressed by, including Teyba Erkesso's gutsy win in the women's race, we thought that Hall gave a strange and disappointing performance. If he hadn't actually run well (he was fourth in 2:08:41, the fastest ever by an American in Boston), we might feel better. What we feel now is that Hall, in "running free," which we think means ignoring the other elite athletes on the course, completely removed himself from the marathon competition. Instead of racing, he did a marathon-pace run for 26.2 miles. He failed to respond when the real racing began, and then, once he got back into it, he was too busy hitting his splits and playing airplane on Boylston Street to bother out-kicking Deriba Merga. Hall is entitled to race any way he likes, but his "run free" mantra and his behavior (he checked his watch compulsively, including at the 26 mile mark) don't make much sense in combination. Our suspicion is that the pressure on Hall to fill his role as the savior of American distance running has become too much to bear. We're sorry to see that happen, but we'll take the opportunity to note that we find distance running compelling because it involves competition, which ever so often reveals something about the human spirit. Hall was doing something out there yesterday, but it wasn't competing.

That was more than a couple of thoughts. Our apologies. Moving on...

As mentioned, there were plenty of other races this weekend, including top-quality marathons in Vienna and Nagano, a screaming-fast 10K on the roads in Barcelona, the Mt. SAC distance races, and the Great Ireland Run 10K.

We'd guess that American fans have already absorbed the news from Mt. SAC, which featured fast 10Ks on Thursday evening and even better 5Ks on Friday. William and Mary's Jon Grey got a surprise win in the men's 10,000m, running 28:40.33 with a 12-second margin of victory over Ahmed Osman of Northern Arizona. Mexico's Karina Perez won the women's 10,000m in 33:30.84 over Washington runner Sarah Porter in 33:40.84. The men's 5,000m wasn't all that fast, but it was deep. 8:14 steeplechaser Dan Huling won over Brent Vaughn in 13:24, and eight men broke 13:30. The women's race was the opposite: Sally Kipyego won a duel with Molly Huddle, 15:02.83 to 15:05.71. Third place was 15:40. Results here.

In the "where did he come from" category, Kenyan Josphat Kiprono Menjo ran 27:04 for10K in at the Cursa de Bombers race in Barcelona. Who is Menjo? Your guess is as good as ours. He's run 27:04 for 10,000m on the track and was eighth in the 10,000m at the world championships in Osaka. But from the looks of it, he just ran the race of his life, and may have missed the world record because he went out too hard (he opened with a 1:15 first 500m and went through 5K in 13:24).

And those two non-Boston marathons: the one in Nagano and the one in Vienna. Nagano titles went to Australia's Lisa Weightman in a PR 2:28:48 and Kenya's Nicholas Chelimo in 2:10:24. The race featured more unseasonably cold weather; several high profile marathons in Japan this year have been hit with unexpected cold and wind, and Nagano was hit with a snowstorm on Saturday.

In Vienna, Kenyan Henry Sugut was the surprise winner in 2:08:40, a two-minute PR. Hellen Kimutai, another Kenyan, won the women's race in 2:31:08.

Former Providence College star and current McMillan Elite runner Martin Fagan took down the Great Ireland Run 10K, the first Irishman ever to win the race. Fagan ran 29:15. Scott Freye Murray won the women's race in 32:28.

We started in Boston, and we'll end there, too, with the BAA Miles and 5K. On a rainy, cool Sunday morning, Great Britain's Andy Baddeley won the men's mile in 4:08.6 and Morgan Uceny the women's in 4:43.0. Results here. Josh Cox made a surprise appearance in the non-professional 5K, running 14:31 for the win over Brian Harvey. Jenn Campbell won the women's race in 16:50. Results here.